“Grief changes you”: Terri Irwin's emotional account of her struggle to cope without Steve
Terri Irwin has opened up about her struggles to cope with life without her late husband Steve 12 years after his passing.
Steve Irwin, who will be immortalised with his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame this month, has not been forgotten by his wife and two children who to this day continue to keep his memory and legacy alive.
Last night, Terri, 53, spoke to the ABC 7.30 Report from Australia Zoo.
“None of us are immune to grief and everyone who has suffered loss understands that grief changes but you never wake up one morning and you’ve moved on,” Terri said. “It stays with you and you know, you ebb and flow.”
But she said the Hollywood star was “special”.
She said: “To be able to acknowledge everything that he worked so hard for in making sure that the world at large understood the importance of conservation and not just folks like ourselves who loved wildlife and wild places. It is very moving.”
In her emotional account of her loss, Terri confessed she had not been prepared for life without Steve.
“As someone who always considered myself a fairly independent person, I really wasn’t prepared for that sense of fear — can I really take all of this forward? I was worried about my kids, our beautiful zoological facility and the work Steve started,” she said.
She said she never wavered from Steve’s mission of conservation, but it did take time to heal.
“It took time to reconvene, believing in myself again and believing that this is something we could achieve together,” she said.